Ligero
(pronounced "lee-HAIR-oh") is a type of
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus ''Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the chie ...
leaf found near the top of each tobacco plant. Slower to mature than the
seco and
viso leaves found at the middle of the plant or the easy-burning
volado leaves at the bottom, ligero leaves are characterized by a coarse texture and produce smoke with a potent, spicy taste. Ligero leaf is selected for the manufacture of heavy, full-bodied
cigar
A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaves made to be Tobacco smoking, smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made of three distinct components: the fill ...
s, being rolled at the very center of the
filler bundle owing to its slow-burning nature.
Description
While the
variety of tobacco,
climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologi ...
, and
soil type
A soil type is a taxonomic unit in soil science. All soils that share a certain set of well-defined properties form a distinctive soil type. Soil type is a technical term of soil classification, the science that deals with the systematic categoriz ...
affect the strength and flavor of tobacco smoke, another key variable is the part of the plant from which the leaves are harvested. The leaves of a tobacco plant ripen from the bottom to the top and are
harvested in a series of "primings" as they become ready. As successive layers of leaves are picked and time passes, nutrients concentrate in the slowest ripening leaves remaining at the top of the plant, resulting in the strongest and most flavorful cigar tobacco.
Third-generation cigarmaker
Carlos Fuente, Jr. has observed that traditional Cuban tobacco farming was a slow process which allowed for the full development of the spicy ligero leaf.
"…The top leaves are left to overripen, and it looks ugly as hell… And that's what gives you your baritone, heavy flavor, more body. It gives you more complexity."
Extended direct exposure to the sun is a chief contributing factor to the thickened texture and fuller flavor of ligero leaves. As ligero leaves tend to be thicker and oilier, they burn with more difficulty than other tobacco leaves. They are consequently rolled into the very center of the filler bundle of the cigar, so that ignition can be maintained by the lighter surrounding leaf.
"Cigar Structure,"
''Cigars Magazine,'' 2006. www.cigarsmag.com/
References
{{reflist
External links
* Michael DeBoisbriand
"How Cigars are Made: Types of Cigar Tobacco,"
YouTube.com, October 1, 2008. (video)
* David Savona
"I Love the Smell of Ligero in the Morning,"
''Cigar Aficionado'' online, June 13, 2008.
Cigars
Tobacco